For Victorian ship fittings, you might find something useful in the few 1/72 kits of old ships that are around. Not my line of interest, so I cannot point you in a particular direction.

As to figures, the German company Preiser produces an incredibly wide range of figures in a lot of scales, 1/72 among them. I would be very surprised if you dont find there what you are looking for - but be prepared to spend some time searching.

Nobody has "Victorian" fittings, only modern. And the vendors I have found don't know from scale. They have the item's dimensions but it is up to me to decide which is right. But I don't know how big a binacle is supposed to be, so how do I know?

Guess I will have to snoop around and try to find actual measurements of the real deal and then figure out what they would be in 72nd.

Maybe I will wait until I have a hull to put them in . . .

Should know more in a week.
Might even have a camera so I can take pictures.

After rereading the text it occurred (sp?) to me that Verne tells us what color uniform and clothes everyone on the NAUTILUS is wearing. He proudly states that their clothes are made from fibers that hold sea creatures to the sea floor and dyed with extracts from the murex snail. The only colors you get from that snail are blue and purple depending on if you expose the dye to the sun (saw that on several History Channel programs recently.)

Oddly enough, they get this right in the movie, "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen".

I had come across them but hadn't had time to search their site. In fact, I had almost forgotten them. The easiest vendor I have dealt with so far has been Squadron. I have some 72nd scale figures coming from them. Ships-n-Things has nothing in my scale, nothing but a propeller.

Where have all the R/C sub vendors gone? I had several sites like Thor bookmarked that just don't exist anymore. At least not so I can find them.
Have they all gone under?

After two failed attempt to scratchbuild a hull (or was it three?) Fate has smiled on me with the rerelease of a 1954 model that's been retooled:
http://www.megahobby.com/productimages/hwk/HWK70816.jpgIt use to be a vacuform kit and now the hull is injection molded --- much stronger.

The kit is almost exactly in the right proportion for my needs. I just have to lengthen the hull by about an inch.

The plexiglass will be used in the Salon windows and the pilot house. That's the only place I will need it to be transparent. Might use it elsewhere but not in the hull.

Ah, great minds think alike! I have been nursing the idea of motorising a Zeppelin as a steampunk submarine for a long time. The streamline is too good to miss, and if you turn it upside down, there is already a conning tower in front. Revell's 1/720 Hindenburg comes to mind in particular, but I have not been able to find it over the last year or so.

wingtip wrote:when did the project go from being a new nautilus build to a zeppelin?

If I understood modelnut correctly, the idea is to use the streamlined hull of a Zeppelin as a basis to model the original Jules Verne Nautilus (which in contrast to the sea-monster Disney version is described as having a cigar-shaped hull).

The funny thing is that the model is not an exact representation of the Graf Zeppelin. The GZ is supposed to be 775 feet long and 100 feet in diameter. That gives a ratio of 7.75. The NAUTILUS is supposed to be 70 meters long and 8 meters in diameter with a ratio of 8.75. Turns out that the model is almost 8.75 comparing length to diameter.

What is way too cool is that the model will be closer to 68 scale instead of 72 --- that's the scale of the 31.5 inch Disney/Goff NAUTILUS that I have had waiting for years!

This is the Hawk/Testors LZ127 kit, right? 1/245 scale, length 38.5' (98 cm)?
At that length, is the hull in 2 pieces or cut up like that of the Revell Gato?
If the model is halfway good, it should show the Zeppelin's framework structure through the "skin" - do you plan to keep that or get rid of it? might be a lot of work.

No. Any skeletal details you want on your zeppelin will have to be painted on. (Remember the pictures of the finished kit are around sixty years old.) The facets are there of course. But they can be covered with a skim of putty.

Oh! The hull comes in two pieces, left and right. I wish they were top and bottom though. That would make converting her to R/C so much easier.
The crappy part is that the GZ is not symetrical around her central axis. She is bowed in the vertical direction. I suppose that is for aerodynamical reasons. Put a big fat fly in my ointment though.

I glued the hull together yesterday and puttied over the gaps where the stabilizers were supposed to go. I hope to build the nose extension tonight. When I get some pictures I will be sure to post them.